SYNOPSIS

Generally, a project is a collaborative effort of a group of individuals to achieve a particular aim. Therefore, communication among the project stakeholders is crucial to ensure the success of the project. Generally, communication serves one of these purposes for a specific issue: to convey a position by a contracting party, to issue a direction, to complete an administrative process and to explain and provide justification or reply to an enquiry. In this age of technology, letters are still issued between contracting parties as official means of communication. The contents of such letter are usually technical but how involved are engineers in the process of drafting the project letters? For engineers who are part of the project management team as package engineers or site team representatives, the ability to draft a good project letter is invaluable to the interests of the project, the company and more often than not, the engineers themselves. Contrary to what some engineers may think, a good project letter doesn’t necessarily require good grammar or a stellar command of the English language.

This sharing is meant to explore why are project letters written, some general approaches to drafting of project letters and the dos and donts. This sharing will also analyse some samples of project letters based on the speaker’s experience or audience submissions. This talk is suitable for project managers and engineers involved in site projects which involve extensive amount of official communication with clients, partners and contractors.


SPEAKERS’ BIODATA

Ir. Khor Yee Shin (Albert) graduated from Strathclyde University with MEng in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in 2011. He has been involved in project management for oil and gas construction projects, holding various roles from hull engineer to contract engineer. His project involvements among others include FSU Lekas (Singapore), Gumusut-Kakap Semi-FPS Project, MaMPU 1 Project (Malaysia) and FSO Benchamas 2 (Thailand).
    
He provides contract management support to the project management team and management in all levels of the project from the pre-award stage to post-award stage, execution stage and post-commencement stage. He leads the subcontracts management from contract drafting to dispute resolution including arbitration and adjudication. He recognizes that proper letter writing can improve clarity in the project, reduce possibility of disputes, enhance paper trail and better protect the interests of the company in the event of an official dispute. Currently, Albert is also serving as Honorary Secretary of Malaysia Joint Branch RINA-IMarEST since 2012


Note:
- Jointly organised by Malaysia Joint Branch RINA-IMarEST and Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture Technical Division, IEM